


And a Kiss for the Road

by cyanspica



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Author Despises This Dumbass Holiday, Author Is A Cruel and Capricious God, Hurt/Comfort, Kind of Canon Compliant, M/M, Poor Gabriel (Supernatural), Poor Sam Winchester, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Valentine's Day, sam centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:08:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanspica/pseuds/cyanspica
Summary: With a track record like Sam's, the last thing he needs is a whole holiday dedicated to love.





	And a Kiss for the Road

 

  

Dean left a few hours ago with some parting remark about Valentine's Day being a day with crowded bars full of lonely women, and Sam had decided he was nice enough not to let on that he knew that was really an excuse for going out to have little festive fun with Castiel. That’d been how he’d ended up alone in the bunker on his least favorite holiday of the year, which was damn fine by him, really.

 

With a track record like Sam's, the last fucking thing he needs is a whole holiday dedicated to love. He’s smart enough to know by now that opening old wounds is never worthwhile if it can be avoided.

 

Research really is the best distraction, and all things considered, that’s exactly what Sam needs on a night like this. It’s so good of a distraction, in fact, that Sam doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until a dead man’s voice breaks the silence.

 

“Christ, Sam,” Gabriel chimes from somewhere too far away and too close all at once, “I know you’ve always liked to play the monk, but this is taking it a little too far, don’t you think?”

 

He’s used to dreams like this by now. They’ve followed him for years, and though the faces in them have changed, they never have quite lost their sting.

 

But he could tell from the first word Gabriel said that this one would be different. This one? This would be one that much worse.

 

His dreams aren’t visions like they used to be; they’re genuine dreams now, and that means they’re faded, cloudy, overexposed at the edges.

 

This?

 

This isn’t. Everything around him is right as he left it when he was awake, and even the book in front of him still has every word in place. Everything has that stark sort of clarity that try as it may, his sleeping mind never quite can reproduce.

 

But it’s Gabriel that strikes him the most.

 

It’s Gabriel who sounds so real. Every syllable and lilt in his voice seems too crisp, too clean, too _real_ to be some production of Sam’s subconscious. Sam’s sure that if he turned around, he’d see his archangel standing there, arms crossed and lips upturned in the special smile he always used to reserve just for Sam.

 

He _wants_ to turn around. He truly does, even though he knows it’ll just remind him of every detail that’s no longer his to admire.

               

He _wants_ to turn around, but he knows he shouldn’t.

 

It’s been too long, and he knows he should let go.

 

That’s what Gabriel would’ve wanted—or that’s what Dean and Castiel used to tell him, at least.

 

Sam knows deep down that they’re right, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

 

“What, you haven’t missed me?” Gabriel asks, this time from somewhere closer.

 

His ever-present amusement is still thick in his tone, but there’s a spiderweb of cracks cutting through it showing things that Sam can’t quite grasp.

 

“Guess I deserve the silent treatment, but you’ve gotta know by now that I did my best.” He pauses, and Sam can just see how his smile would flicker if he were actually there. “C’mon, kid. Talk to me.”

 

Sam knows Gabriel’s behind him now, can feel the heat radiating off of him even in his dream. He can feel warm air on the back of his neck, can see fingers moving to brush his hair away from his face out of the corner of his eye.

 

 _“You’re too pretty to hide behind all this hair,”_ he’d once told Sam while they’d been basking in afterglow, all lazy smiles and heat against his chest.

 

It’s too realistic. It all feels too tangible. He’s afraid if he turns around that Gabriel will actually be there, and all those scars he’s spent so long trying to heal are going to be too raw, ripped back open if he has the chance to remember everything in detail like this.

 

Maybe he’s not ready to move on, but he’s ready to try.

 

Sam shuts his eyes as tightly as he can. He tries to wake up, but can’t quite make that final leap. The bunker blurs at the edges, twists, and Sam’s sure he’s just about to break through when a hand clamps down on his shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. 

 

Sam’s eyes snap back open, flinching at the intensity of a grip that doesn’t feel fake at all. Like Gabriel notices, the hand is yanked away so fast the hunter’s almost given the impression it’s been burned.

 

“Can’t ever make anything easy, can you?” Sam can finally pick up on the vulnerable note in Gabriel’s voice. It’s fear, he realizes, but he still can’t quite figure out why. It’s even more present when he speaks again, but a sudden influx of sadness overwhelms it, like Gabriel expects to be shoved away. “Don’t suppose I ever let it on, but I did always like that about you.”

 

And real or not, Sam can’t stand to hear that kind of sorrow in Gabriel’s voice. He’s heard it only a few times before, of course, but the last time he did was the last time he ever heard Gabriel speak at all.

 

Sam turns around.

 

Gabriel is _there_ , looking as vibrant and lively as he did the last time Sam saw him. There’s no hint of blood on his clothes, no ashen hue to his skin, nothing to tip him off to the fate he met at all.

 

Sam can almost believe that he didn’t ever even die.

 

“God, I’ve missed you,” Sam wearily breathes, and Gabriel must truly be out of it if he doesn’t even have some witty remark on hand for him using his Father’s name in vain.

 

His archangel just steps forward, then all but collapses into Sam’s arms.

 

Sam just about melts back into his embrace, deciding that even a dream is better than nothing at all. He can pretend, if only for a little while. He’s fucked up more than anyone should have a right to, but he’s earned this one small thing, hasn’t he?

 

Gabriel’s hands drift over him like they’re trying to catalog every last detail, eyes studying him like they’re trying to memorize him. But they flicker back to Sam after only a few moments, alight with annoyance even beneath the absolutely ridiculous amount of affection in his eyes.

 

“Stop thinking so hard for one fucking minute,” Gabriel orders him, but that’s damn near impossible when you may as well have your dead boyfriend back—even if only for a short while. Gabriel rolls his eyes a few moments later, but there’s something predatory in his gaze when he sets it back onto Sam. “Guess I have to do everything myself around here, don’t I?”

 

Gabriel kisses him with a desperate sense of urgency, but Sam’s too lost in the blissful feel of having the angel’s skin under his hands to truly notice. It’s more teeth and tongue than lips, and the tang of iron fills his mouth before long, but it’s perfect.

 

Sam should know by now that nothing even in a dream can feel quite so lifelike, but he may as well be putty in Gabriel’s hands for how much he’s missed this.

 

Gabriel’s not entirely wrong about Sam’s habits either, because he may as well have been celibate since the Elysian Hotel. It’s been too long, Gabriel’s hot and heavy draped over him, and the constant slide of denim on denim is just about the best damned thing he’s felt in forever. It’s getting to him far faster than it should, far faster than it has any right to. Christ, he’s seriously going to come in his pants like a teenager before they’ve even gotten a shirt off.

 

He makes a move to change their positions, but Gabriel sinks his teeth into his throat in warning.

 

“Not enough time,” the archangel growls, punctuating his statement with a roll of his hips that distracts Sam from why that could even possibly be the case.

 

Sam just goes with it, ignoring the blood he can feel dripping down his neck from the bite when Gabriel’s mouth is over his in a moment, sucking away. A hand slips up his shirt to tweak a nipple, the other dropping just low ease for the pads of fingers to tease just below the band of Sam’s boxers.

 

Sam whines, fucking _whines_ somewhere in the back of his throat as he arches his hips up against the angel, and that seems to do it for Gabriel. The archangel’s veins glow gold and his eyes flash white, but the colors are muted. Sam should take notice of it, really, but Gabriel starts sucking a long trail of bruises down the length of his neck.

 

He’s fucking _spoiling_ Sam just the way he likes it, right up until the friction gets to be too much for Sam, and the little shit _stops_ to smile up at him through innocent lashes colored completely gold, swollen lips kissed crimson red, clever enough to remember just how much Sam loves to see the effects of his handiwork.

 

Sam’s head falls back as shudders through his release, a cry of Gabriel’s name muffled into the angel’s lips. He slumps back spent in the chair after a long few moments, mind reduced to cataloging. Hands threading through his hair. Gentle lips against his neck. The distant hum of Grace beneath Gabriel’s skin.

 

It’s a long moment before he can even see straight again, and he comes down from his high even slower, hazy and limbless with Gabriel against his chest.

 

It’s good. Hell, it’s perfect. Sam’s almost convinced himself that things can stay like this, that he can stay trapped in this one moment where everything’s alright, where he can pretend that he didn’t have to burn Gabriel’s body a long time ago.

 

So maybe it does take him longer than he should to figure out that Gabriel isn’t looking up at him like he’s thinking any of the same things, and maybe it takes him a little longer to snap out of his reverie than he should.

 

But in the end, he’s only human.

               

And if there's anything humanity's good at, it's hoping.

 

He still deserves to be able to do that, right?

 

Sam swallows hard, dislodging Gabriel from atop him as he stands.

 

The archangel stands with him, any sign of the afterglow long since faded. He looks old, impossibly so, and more defeated than Sam thinks anyone should ever have to feel.

 

“Gabriel,” Sam slowly enunciates, aware of the distinct falter in his voice, “Your shirt.” 

 

Gabriel’s smile stays, but it’s bitter. The whole weight of the world is on his shoulders all of the sudden. Sam’s sure he must’ve already known what was about to come out of the hunter’s mouth, because he doesn’t even need to look down. He gives off the distinct impression that he already knows what he’d find.

 

Across Gabriel’s front, blood gushes openly from some wound Sam can’t quite see. Nearly the entirety of his shirt is soaked in a matter of seconds, and the flow’s slowing, not quite stopping, tapering off into a steady ooze. The rest of it dries too quick, darkening into a color so close to black Sam can only guess at how old it is.

 

Except he doesn’t have to, because he knows where the blood came from. It took days before Dean would believe Lucifer had cleared out, but he saw Gabriel. He saw the stab wound.

 

“You were dead,” Sam dully says, stumbling over the words. He saw Gabriel, couldn’t accept that his archangel was truly gone until he was holding his body in his hands. He’d seemed so small in death, all glazed over golden eyes and cold blood. “You _died._ ”

 

Slowly, all of the ill-fitting pieces of the puzzle start to come together for Sam all at once. The realism. The urgency. His subdued Grace. The puzzle begins to fit, but Sam can’t stand the picture he’s starting to see.

 

Gabriel seems to know that he’s figured it out now, because he just seems to grow that much older in a single moment. The golden eyed angel reaches out to cup Sam’s face, letting his thumb tracing the length of Sam’s jaw. His smile isn’t really a smile at all, only a bitter mockery of one.

 

“I never was any good for you, you know,” Gabriel mournfully tells him, golden eyes dulling too much like the body that’s all too fresh in Sam’s memory.

 

Gabriel’s visage starts to flicker, and for a moment, his mouth twists into a strange little picture, but he’s gone before Sam can truly take hold of what he’s seeing.

  

The effort visibly weakens Gabriel, and the scenery starts to shift around then all at once. Cracks appear in the walls, then the floors, finally running up into Gabriel himself. He looks like a mirror that’s been hit too hard, a hundred images refracting and twisting every time he twitches.

 

The archangel’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t flinch, even when a rivulet of blood appears at his temple. His face is framed with more and more rivulets of crimson with every passing second, painted deeper shades of blue and purple the more Sam looks.

 

Has he felt all these injuries the whole time, forced himself to keep on a smile for Sam’s sake, even when he’s hardly been holding together the whole time?

 

“Where are you? How do I get to you?” Sam asks him as he realizes that Gabriel is moment away from vanishing entirely, his breaking voice two shades past desperate. “Tell me what I need to do to get to you. Tell me what to do. Please.”

 

Gabriel’s illusion is slowly breaking apart in front of him, all the layers of swagger and falling away in front of him. Sam knows by now that the truth isn’t ever as pretty as everyone makes it to be, but that doesn’t mean it ache any less.

 

He surges forwards, but Gabriel’s not solid under his fingers anymore. He’s still there, only not quite tangible any longer, and Sam’s fingers pass through him like he’s trying to hold onto smoke. 

 

“I’d come back if I could, kid.”

 

Gabriel looks small and sad, and it wrenches Sam’s heart straight from his chest to see. This can’t be how he remembers him. He wants him to smile, to be happy, to pretend like they’d had the time to live out all the things they’d wanted to do.

 

“ _Please,”_ Sam begs, feeling like it’s him that’s falling apart at the seams, not his angel.

 

Gabriel’s alive, and he’s giving up on trying to be saved, that’s just that much worse. All Sam knows for sure is that he’s already had to lose Gabriel once. He doesn’t think he can do it again.

 

“It’s all downhill from here, Sam,” Gabriel gently promises him.

 

And all of the sudden, Sam feels like he’s back to his worst memory, of holding his angel’s body, trying to hang onto something even though he knows he can’t get it back. It took too much out of him to let go of him that first time.

 

Maybe Gabriel knows that.

 

Maybe he knows a lot of things, like how Sam would've stayed at the hotel until he wasted away unless Dean had physically dragged him out, wrapped up the archangel's body, and burned it himself. 

 

Maybe he knows about how close Sam came to calling up Lucifer to strike a deal if it meant he got to see him one last time, that he only stopped himself when he watched the CD all the way through until he found the Easter egg Gabriel had left for him at the end, the one love confession Sam never had the chance to return—one still left unsaid on his lips, one that he doesn't think either of them has the strength to take right now, and that he hopes Gabriel already knows.

 

Maybe Gabriel even knows how how Sam will try to tell himself it was nothing but a weird dream when Dean and Castiel will wake up him tomorrow morning, and how he'll even trick himself into believing it until he realizes that the taste of sugar is still sweet on his tongue.

 

Maybe he really does know all those things, so he fades into nothing between his hunter's fingers to spare Sam the suffering of having to let go.

 

But then again, maybe he doesn’t know at all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i swear to fucking god and jesus fucking christ i hate valentine's day so much so i decided to dedicate mine to ruining yours :))
> 
> sorry but not really bc angst is my bread and fucking butter bitches. also, yes, this was published at one AM the 15th, but it's this stupid ass shitty holiday in california still so it's fine ok 
> 
> on the other hand, i'm actually writing another Sabriel fic that's more than one chapter and not totally soul crushing depressing, and the first chapter should be up soon! i'd love it if y'all would check that out
> 
> leave kudos, comment what you liked, what you didn't, that you're going to murder me in my sleep, etc. i value all your comments and thoughts!!
> 
> thanks xx


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